Over the past few years, there have been persistent rumours that NVIDIA, the graphics chip maker, was working on an x86 chip to compete with Intel and AMD. Recently, these rumours gained some traction, but NVIDIA's CEO just shot them down, and denied the company will enter the x86 processor market.

Both Intel and AMD are working on integrating the graphics chip with the processor, which could seriously hurt NVIDIA. Intel makes its own graphics chips, and AMD of course has ATI to draw from. A logical conclusion would be for NVIDIA to start offering its own x86 processor.

Further fuelling the rumours of NVIDIA entering the x86 processor market is the news that the company has been hiring ex-Transmeta engineers, a company which used to make power-efficient x86 processors. It's also been suggested a number of times that NVIDIA might buy VIA, the other x86 processor maker.

When asked about the rumours, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was clear. "No," he said when asked if the rumours had any basis in reality, "NVIDIA's strategy is very, very clear. I'm very straightforward about it. Right now, more than ever, we have to focus on visual and parallel computing."

Instead of releasing its own x86 processor, NVIDIA will focus on getting its GPUs into as many different device types as possible. "GPUs in servers for parallel computing, for supercomputing - and cloud computing with our GPU is a fabulous growth opportunity - and streaming video," Huang said, "And also getting our GPUs into the lowest power platforms we can imagine and driving mobile computing with it."